*

I just loved the ending of this article, as the writers aim to provide some “balance” to an issue with obviously no second side:

Release of the report spurred some objections yesterday.

The causes of cancer are “extremely complex and involve factors like genetics, the environment, lifestyle, and a host of other issues,” said Randy Huffman, vice president of scientific affairs at the Washington-based American Meat Institute, in a statement.

Isaac Asimov wrote this, not more than a few tens of minutes to read.  It is… well, I was not particularly happy today yet it gave me a feeling of beauty.

Check out the photo gallery and be overwhelmed by 250 or so photos

Not sure anyone I don’t really contact frequently is reading this blog, or why they even would, but those of you I haven’t been in touch with recently: While not leaving Tokyo, I am on the lookout for a new place to live, maybe Ebisu or Meguro station.  Definitely on my own, for various reasons.  If you know anyone with a nice place that they don’t need anymore, let me know.

Well written and absorbing non-fiction recounting of terrible and inspiring events.

While Chicago has never been a terrorist target, the police in Chicago sound like they do a fine job terrorizing the people.

In the three years I have been living in Japan thus far, I have made solid progress learning the language.  I can with some confidence sit through a japanese feature film without my eyes glazing over, confident I have at least caught the gross outlines of a plot.

But subtitles are still preferable, and I usually just wait for a DVD release.

Conversely, for the japanese person sitting next to me watching a DVD, it is no great excitement to watch a brand new hollywood movie, because there is anywhere from a 3 month to two year gap between when most movies are released in the US and when they hit Japanese theatrical, let alone DVD release.

This means I usually end up seeing things very late, or I scour the internet looking for fan-generated subtitles (either english ones for new japanese releases, or japanese ones for new english-language releases).

Either way, the DVD format is lacking, and sure enough I can’t even contemplate watching say, a spanish language release with a japanese friend.

That was mildly unpleasant, making me watch Motorcycle Diaries twice, and so on.

But Babel, sigh.

I really really wanted to see Babel in a proper theatre, and here is a film that is reportedly in six languages.  I don’t know if that is accurate, but there was no way I could just watch it in a japanese cinema.  I couldn’t just watch it on DVD either, because I wanted to enjoy not alone, but together.

I love the irony of a film titled “Babel” being unviewable together by two people with different native tongues.

So I redoubled my efforts to find a way to watch a film with both Japanese and English subtitles at the same time.
I located a fan-generated Japanese subtitle stream.

I got ahold of the US release, which has english subtitles.

I found not a single program for the Mac that supports this concept.

However, to my surprise, in Bootcamp under windows XP, The KMPlayer, a free video player, not only functions perfectly fine (even running IN PARALLELS!) but it allows the playback of multiple subtitle streams, regardless of whether those streams are part of the original feature or are sourced from a separate subtitle file.

We sat through the film together, and while I won’t make any plot spoilers, it was well worth sharing the experience for once.

So I we were out shopping, and she was looking at some imitation bags, and I noticed sitting there a few ipod shuffles (the tiny tie-clip ipod) and they were in new apple boxes, and I was pretty surprised that they even had customers for such things.  The export-only oriented factory is indeed in china, so hey.  I had the store let me listen to it playing music, and after laughing at their iniital price of 3x japan retail, I explained that it was silly for me to pay any more than 50% of retail, when retail for the same item includes oh, a receipt and a warranty.  So I take it home and plug it in and look closer, and actually, it is an AMAZING fake.  Looks totally real, even plays mp3 files.  But it is actually just a flash memory mp3 (not aac compatible) player that looks and feels 99% like a real 2nd generation shuffle.  It cannot sync with iTunes, and it copies files very slowly.  But other than that it is damned hard to notice that it is not real.

Of course an economist would say that if I still want one, retail is a decent price, and I should not think of the price as retail plus the 50% retail I already paid, but that is what it feels like when it was an impulse buy that I barely need.  Foolish me.

I wonder if the guy selling it even knows it is fake, let alone what he is selling, considering his initial completely insane asking price of  about $300.

Is this actually the case? This article says that a study shows that if you take all the energy used to produce a single prius, then the gas used at MPG estimates over its 100,000 mile expected life, it uses more energy than even a hummv (despite the hummv having horrible mileage and driving on the road for 300,000 mile expected lifespan). All this because of the globe-circling production process involved in the high-tech batteries…

See this movie.  I don’t care what kind of movie you like.  Just see this

OK, If you are squeemish about blood, well, maybe you shouldn’t see this movie.

Spoilers! Below I discuss minor plot elements that you would have to be catatonic to not see a mile ahead.  Stuff that Spoiler crazies not unlike myself might still rather not know before seeing a movie.

Leonardo DeCaprio somehow manages to improve his already stellar acting credentials. The slow development of his friendship with his psychiatrist is so subtly and believably expressed that I strongly felt the characters’ connecting.  It is a rare quality that a cinematic romance appears not believable, but real.  Not just in the romance department, his character is conveyed with great emotional appeal.  Usually movie Heros come with cartoon morality, or “jaded worldliness” that seems equally artificial after endless repetition.  Here DiCaprio’s character somehow manages to be a beacon for us and yet alive, wounded, human.
Jack Nicholson must have a John Malchovich door into the Devil’s head, because he has spent a career honing his capacity to play the part.  In Scorcese’s Gangs of New York we got a villain that seemed human, a dark product of a vicious time.  With Jack this time around it is easy to say he is just pure evil, but he is much more impressive a villain than that, because he is also completely real, human, a dark and grimly driven fiend, pitiable in his life’s meaninglessness, frightening in his believability.

Damon’s performance is complicated.  He does an incredible job as well, so much so that I had some difficulty separating the actor and the character.  Both he and DiCaprio lie for a living, but Damon’s liar lies to protect the wolf that preys on us, and DiCaprio lies to protect us from the wolf.  DiCaprio’s character can’t sleep at night from the stress he is under.  Damon’s I imagine sleeps the peaceful sleep of the truly lost.